Oral description of Italian as a Foreign Language at A1 level

Abstract

Oral descriptive production in oral interactions in Italian as a Foreign Language (IFL) between grouped students and the teacher provides feedback on descriptive strategies and communicative competence. In this study, the interactions, which took place in the first semester of the academic year 2020-21, involved learners of Italian Language D-I of the Translation and Interpreting (UA) degree. With regard to the methodology, the activity consisted of three phases: 1) planning; 2) implementation through Google Meet, which comprised three sessions with video and audio recording, during which the learners exhibited the oral descriptive function; 3) evaluation of the activity, and sharing the results and conclusions of the project. The teacher-researcher then analyzed the results (output) to improve the next curricular design (input), based on the action research theory (Living Theory). As specific objectives, we sought to classify the strategies and identify how learners structure the descriptions according to their communicative language competence (A1), following the criteria and standards prescribed by the CEFRL and PCIC regarding the oral descriptive macro-function. By implementing this practice, the students are placed at the center of the learning context, focusing on the achievements in oral communication in regard to the topics covered by the curriculum. In summary, learners perform descriptive sequences, and understand and answer the teacher’s questions, despite some pronunciation, morpho-syntactic and lexical errors, while maintaining a fluent discourse with reasonable cohesion, as per their A1 level of proficiency.